


Road Trip!

by Eldabe



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-25
Updated: 2011-07-25
Packaged: 2017-10-21 18:28:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/228264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eldabe/pseuds/Eldabe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gwen, Rhys, Ianto and the baby are on a Very Important Case. In America!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Road Trip!

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on my livejournal [here.](http://eldarwannabe.livejournal.com/146388.html)

When they finally got their own car, with good petrol mileage and manual transmission, Rhys claimed the right to drive first.

"Lorry driver!" he reminded them.

So Rhys was driving, Gwen was in the front with the sat-nav and Ianto was in the back with Anwen, an emergency map and their case notes, which he planned to puzzle over to see if they could figure out more than "drive down the East Coast of the United States and hope to get lucky."

Rhys pulled out into the road easily.

"Right," Gwen reminded him when he took a turn.

"What?"

"Right."

"This is the right turn?"

"No! Stay in the right side of the road!"

The car swerved, Ianto's head jerked up from his notes.

"Not that far to the right!" Gwen yelled, grabbing the "oh, crap" handle and bracing for impact as Rhys over-compensated.

"It's fine!" Rhys insisted as he swung the wheel back again. Then an absolutely _huge_ lorry started driving _directly_ at them, and Rhys jerked the wheel too far to the left automatically.

"AAAAAAAHHHHH!"

"AAAAAAAHHHHH!"

"AAAAAAAHHHHH!"

Anwen, who had already established herself as the most calm-headed of the group, gave a baby-smile.

"RIGHT!" Ianto bellowed from the back seat, with Gwen chanting the same in the front. Rhys jerked the wheel the other way, and the lorry missed them by _centimeters_. They pulled over to the side.

Anwen clapped her hands.

***  
Ianto claimed the right to drive the next day. He fussed with the sat-nav until he was satisfied with all the settings, adjusted the seat and the mirrors and played with the gearshift for a few minutes.

He had his hands on the textbook-correct position and he'd already memorized their route. Rhys was in the front, as all had agreed that his lorry skills could easily translate to map-reading. It was Gwen's job to go over the notes and see if they could narrow down their destination from "more South than Boston."

Just in case, Anwen was wearing a tiny motorbike helmet. And Gwen had taped a large pillow to the back of Rhys's seat, behind which Anwen's baby seat had been nearly stapled into the car. Anwen smiled at the pillow and reached for it.

In all fairness, Ianto was very deft at handling the oncoming traffic when he went the wrong way on the roundabout. There wasn't even a scratch on the car.

***

"My turn!" Gwen declared the next morning, and very kindly let Ianto sit in the front, where he clutched the case notes, the map, the sat-nav and the number for that emergency towing company. Straight on to Washington D.C. today. Or something.

Rhys' job was to throw himself in front of Anwen in the event of a disaster. They had taped another pillow the car door and one on the window. Ianto had drawn a rainbow on one of the pillowcases to make the view less boring.

Gwen was tense. She set the sat-nav _loud_.

 **"Turn left,"** the mechanical voice instructed her.

"Why does the sat-nav have an English accent?" Gwen complained, her eyes never wavering from the yellow line in the middle of the road that she was Not To Cross.

"It's called a GPS here," Ianto said, _his_ eyes going back and forth from the sat-nav to the map to the road and then back again.

"Rubbish," Rhys said from the backseat. "More syllables."

"Yes, but why an _English_ accent?" Gwen said, letting her eyes flick to the mirror quickly.

"Sounds more authoritative, doesn't it?" Ianto replied, and Rhys laughed in the back, and Gwen made the Big Mistake of relaxing.

 **"Turn right ahead. Then, take the motorway."**

Obediently, Gwen turned right. A little wide, but not too bad. Now, onto the motorway...

"NOT THAT WAY, GWEN!"

"THE OTHER RAMP! THE OTHER RAMP!"

"AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!"

Gwen did a 360 on the exit ramp, slammed her foot on the petal, shifted gears frantically, drove down the wrong side of the road, and half-pulled onto the pavement and parked, the way Americans never did.

"We are _bloody_ hiring a _bloody_ driver!" Gwen yelled, banging on the wheel.

"Oi! Little ears!" Rhys called out from the back.

Anwen giggled, and kicked at her rainbow-pillow happily.

***

The End.


End file.
